"When you thought it might never get back to normal!" Home-schooling during a pandemic: parent's experiences and reflections.

My research explores the home-schooling experiences of parents during the Covid-19 pandemic and associated lockdown/s. I utilise a narrative approach to listen to the stories of three parents: Bernie, Hollie, and Sarah, each of whom home-schooled during this time. I implemented The LG (Gilligan & Eddy, 2017) as a compatible approach to analysis and one which advocates listening in a careful and sincere way to each story over a series of iterations. I initially attended to the plot within each narrative, then listened to the first person discourse within each, and from which I generated 'I poems'. I subsequently aimed to attend to the quieter and hidden voices in each story. Further listenings attuned polyphony in parents' voices, both harmony and discord. Social and cultural context was estalished as appropriate to identify within the stories, especially due to the unusual cirumstances of a pandemic in which I aimed to understand the phenomenon of home-schooling.
My analysis revealed an understanding of the positives as well as the challenges faced (and managed) during this period, fundamental to which included managing other roles and responsibilities. Each story differed although a single common theme emerged as related to how being a working mother and having limited agency impacted on relationships and time able to be allocated to spend with children and engaged in home-schooling. Other features I identified included collaboration with school, and differences between the two lockdowns were noticed. Relationships were overall perceived as good, curriculum and activity was better received in the first lockdown when seen as less formal and with increased parental agency. Parents experienced anxiety, guilt and uncomfortable emotion and used strategies to cope including mirroring the school day, keeping records and diaries. Positives included increased time with children, bonding opportunities with children or siblings.